


But be of good cheer.

by murg



Category: Original Work
Genre: Abstract, Awkward Conversations, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, Nazi imagery, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, artsy fartsy, mood piece
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-10
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-03-29 00:42:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3875977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murg/pseuds/murg
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Why’d you do it?”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“I guess.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“It really doesn’t.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>The bug falls on its back. It’s wriggling around. He turns to look out the window.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Inconsequential,” Brownshirt says, enunciating carefully, feeling around the word and trying not to get lost. “Really.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Really.”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>He thinks of the diner back in old town, where she’d been sitting, hunched over her cigarette tray like it was her last meal on this Earth. He thinks of regret. He feels nothing. He wants Brownshirt to stop talking.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	But be of good cheer.

**But be of good cheer.**

 

“Why’d you do it?”

He shrugs. “Why not.”

Brownshirt puts his elbows on the steering wheel, hunched over and looking at him with an innocent, child-like cruelty. This is their last red light. He wants to take advantage of it. “No, but seriously—why did you do it?”

He shrugs. “I got choices.”

“And now you’re going.”

“Now I’m going.”

“Going,” Brownshirt says and whistles lowly. “Go-ing.”

“Yup.” He stares with dead eyes at the passing trees, wagging their wire heads at the sky, hunched over their own crossed branches, chilled by the wind, trembling and anorexic. 

“I suppose it doesn’t matter,” Brownshirt says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. “Anyways. It doesn’t matter, anyways.”

“Anyways.”

“Anyways.”

Brownshirt broods, having nothing more to say. Anyways. 

Anyways. 

“Did you say goodbye?”

He shrugs. “I don’t see why I’d do that.” 

“I dunno.”

“Me either.” The carcass of a raccoon, there and gone in a flash, whipping by his head like a sorry ghoul, its jaw wrenched from nose to scrotum, there and gone. 

“Man,” Brownshirt says. _“Man.”_

They’re starting up the mountain now. He hates this part. 

“Funny scores on the sports channel,” Brownshirt says. “Very funny.”

“Yes,” he says. “My whole bracket’s ruined.”

“They told me that you got a girl back home.”

His ears pop. He grimaces. “I suppose so.”

“S’pose? Shit, man, there’s only do or don’t. You got a girl or what?”

He shrugs. “They say I do. But some say I don’t. It doesn’t matter.”

“I guess it don’t,” Brownshirt says, his eyes studying the screaming yellow lines. 

“The idea’s all that counts,” he says. “Anyways.”

Brownshirt brings a fist up to his face and yawns around it. “Are you hungry?”

He shrugs. “No.”

“Shit, man, why’d you do it?”

He shrugs. He picks at the threads in his sweater. It’s green. “Just drive.”

Brownshirt gives a dramatic, long-suffering sigh. 

He doesn’t care, though. It doesn’t matter. The wind groans in pain against the window. It’s bitter cold outside, the air has a saltiness to it here, like the fists of a sobbing lover, her snot and tears raining on your bruised cheek like the thunderstorms in summer. He notices that his shoe’s untied. There’s mud coating the toe. 

“So you got a girl or you don’t. This ain’t no Schrödinger shit.”

“True.”

“This ain’t no Schrödinger shit,” Brownshirt repeats, proud of his own reference. “No sir.”

“Nope.”

“She your wife?”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“So yes.”

“You think what you want.” 

There’s a bug crawling across the dashboard, stumbling. It’s missing a leg. He can hear it scratching against the plastic. 

“No Schrödinger shit, you hear? I wanna know, you shag her?”

He shrugs. “It isn’t really more pressing than everything else.” 

“No,” Brownshirt says, sulking against the wheel. “But you won’t tell me nothing else.”

“You know just as well as I do what’s going on, don’t play this shit.” 

“Maybe I just want to be a little friendly, that so wrong?” 

He shrugs. “I don’t want to be your friend.” 

The trees rattle in the wind, skittish things. He feels sorry for them. 

“Raining over the next town.”

“Really.”

“Really. Anyways.” Brownshirt smacks his lips. “I’m hungry. Are you hungry?”

He shrugs. “I could eat.”

“I feel like pork,” Brownshirt says. 

“Mmhm.” 

“A good ham sandwich,” Brownshirt says. “How’s that sound to you.”

More roadkill, there and gone, a blink, another blink. “It sounds okay.”

“There’s a diner in ten miles. We’ll pull off, there.”

“My shoe’s untied.”

“Then tie it.”

He stares down at it. He remembers the town fair, in ’95, when he tripped over his own feet and knocked over the balloon cart, pink plastic popping and biting his cheeks, turning his skin hot. He remembers the Methodists with their fresh-baked pies and strained smiles. The bakery’s coupon basket, overstuffed with little white papers like a corpse bloated with maggots. His sister screaming as her ice cream slopped onto her new My Little Pony shirt, her face ruddy and desperate, wailing, her jaw outstretched to the universe.

Stupid.

“They says the rest of the drive is easy, once we get over the mountain,” Brownshirt says. 

“I’m thinking about the town fair in ’95,” he says. 

“Why’d you think of a thing like that?”

He shrugs. “Just did.”

“I think I’ll get mustard to go with it,” Brownshirt says. 

He rubs his eyes. There’s a numb horror, in his breast, beating at his ribcage. I’ll have to swallow a spider to fix it, he thinks. And then what. Then what. 

“Why’d you do it?”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I guess.”

“It really doesn’t.”

The bug falls on its back. It’s wriggling around. He turns to look out the window. 

“Inconsequential,” Brownshirt says, enunciating carefully, feeling around the word and trying not to get lost. “Really.”

“Really.”

He thinks of the diner back in old town, where she’d been sitting, hunched over her cigarette tray like it was her last meal on this Earth. He thinks of regret. He feels nothing. He wants Brownshirt to stop talking. 

“So,” Brownshirt says, smacking his lips together. _“So,_ I was wondering, about something.”

“Shoot.”

“How come you’re so calm?”

He shrugs. “I suppose you were expecting something else.”

“Hell, I guess,” Brownshirt says. “Most other people see me rolling up and they shit bricks. But not you.”

“Not me,” he says. “I expected you.”

“You were waiting for me.”

“Yes,” he says. The trees are slouching into bushes now, fetal positions against the wind, ugly nettled things, brown and wary. He decides he isn’t going to think about stupid things anymore. “I was.”

“I wish this weren’t such a Goddamn long drive,” Brownshirt says.

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it Goddamn. Certainly long, though.”

“You’re Goddamned,” Brownshirt says, a dimpled smile on his young face. 

“Probably.”

“Are you hungry?”

He shrugs. “I suppose.”

There’s a stain on the corner of his sleeve, mottled purple and sneering up at him. He blinks back with a passive consideration. He thinks of her eyes glancing away from him, standing on her stoop, fiddling the bottle cap from her pop. He thinks of how she didn’t say she’d miss him, but then again, he thinks, she didn’t say she wouldn’t. And then he doesn’t.

 “Ham and mustard on a good roll,” Brownshirt says. “That’s what I’d like.”

“Mm.”

“You’re so calm.”

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

He shrugs. “Stuff.”

Women are very devastated creatures. He’s never met a women who wasn’t devastated at some point, that didn’t secretly believe her devastation to be at least some degree of romantic, within reason. He’s always seen it in the way they’d curl their lips, tuck them away before they got plump, and let the straight parts of their teeth out, as those same eyes that every woman has would trail off to the side, because they knew not to look too long at anything, anymore. Fiddling with bottle caps and cigarettes.

Stupid.

“Stuff,” Brownshirt repeats. 

“Yes.”

“I’m thinking about food.”

“Mmhm.” 

He rubs his palms around the steering wheel. “So, _did_ you have a woman?”

He shrugs. “It really doesn’t matter.”

“I’m curious, though.”

“Women ain’t shit, man,” he says, clenching his fist around the stain. “It seriously doesn’t matter, anyways.”

“Anyways.”

“Anyways.”

His shoulders curl in on themselves, creating a concave in his chest. Anyways. 

Anyways. 

Hunched over that ashtray, weary and apathetic, too defeated to be afraid. She didn’t hate him, but she didn’t love him, either. He supposed she might have felt sorry for him, if she weren’t too busy feeling sorry for herself. And what for? What for? He’d wanted some of that pity for himself, he’d wanted her to sob into his chest, begging him to stay the night. It’s not a big deal, he’d wanted to console her with a stiff upper lip, it really isn’t. 

It really isn’t. 

It really isn’t. 

“I like summer,” Brownshirt says. “I think it’s a good time.”

“Maybe,” he says.

“Did you fuck her?”

He shrugs. “Inconsequential,” he says, the word rolling off his tongue. The bug’s limbs are kicking weakly.

“I bet you did,” Brownshirt says, bobbing his head in satisfaction. 

“I want a cigarette.”

“Don’t got any, sorry.”

“That’s fine,” he says, pressing his cheek against his seatbelt. 

“So you got any good memories? Words you want me to impart?” Brownshirt says.

He shrugs. “Tell my mother I’m sorry I bought Evey that strawberry cone.”

“Okay, sure,” Brownshirt says. 

“I ruined her life, that day,” he says. 

“I wonder what’s on television tonight.”

“The same old reality tv shit as usual, probably.”

“Probably.”

More roadkill. A dead bird. He wonders what fallen angels are supposed to look like. Their little brittle bones splayed out on the asphalt. Women who learn how to show just the right amount of teeth. It’s not a big deal. She was so embarrassed when she had to look away from him, so embarrassed, her face was going bright red, she looked like a person for the first time in his life, she looked so young and stupid and weak. 

“Man, I’m hungry. Are you hungry?” Brownshirt says. 

He shrugs. “Yes.”

“I seriously can’t wait for summer.”

“Mm.”

“Why would you do it?” Brownshirt says. 

He shrugs. “It’s really none of your concern. It doesn’t matter.” Bright red, like the tongues of the Methodists, like the torn intestine of the raccoon, bright red, her face swelling up like a balloon, ready to kiss his skin. 

“Anyways?”

“No.”

“You don’t scare me,” Brownshirt says, pointing at him. “Not one bit.”

“Really, now.”

“Truly.” He clicks his tongue around, considering. “Hell, you’re a frail thing.”

“That’s what you think?” 

Brownshirt pauses, looking away from the road. His eyes are very blue. 

He fiddles with the edges of his green sweater, pushing them away from his hands, up his elbows. He doesn’t think about his skin. He doesn’t think about anyone’s skin. “Do you suppose crucifixion would have been too humane for your people, too?” 

Brownshirt shrugs. “I dunno what that means.”

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“I’m not stupid,” Brownshirt says hotly. “I’m not dumb.”

“Of course,” he says. “Do you think the Caiaphas or Pontius Pilate killed Jesus?”

“I dunno,” Brownshirt says, fretting with the steering wheel. “I dunno. I don’t think it really matters.”

“I think God killed Jesus,” he says. “I think it was kinda like suicide.”

“Like suicide,” Brownshirt repeats. 

“And martyrs, you know, that’s just suicide too,” he says. “So it’s like imitating God. Our God is a god of suicide. Suicide is really just being so stupid that you die. So we have a stupid God. Maybe that doesn’t matter, though.”

“I don’t think it does,” Brownshirt says. “I don’t think it does at all.”

“And what do we have to gain either way, anyways?” he says.

“Anyways,” Brownshirt repeats. 

“Anyways.”

“Anyways.”

He looks out the window. He feels like the fatted yellow calf. He feels young and stupid and weak. She wouldn’t look at him, when she knew. Anyways. 

Anyways.

“You wanted to know why I did it?” he says. 

Brownshirt’s adam’s apple bobs. He blinks. His head jerks. 

“Okay,” he says. “Well, I don’t want to tell you. I don’t have to do that, I don’t have to give that to you. It doesn’t matter. I did what I did, and you’re doing what you’re doing. Are you scared of me?”

“Yes,” Brownshirt says. He cannot lie. He is a simple creature, and he stares at him like a cow, glassy-eyed and uncomprehending of the ills of the world, chewing on his cud. Jealousy swells in his chest, thick and slimy, unbidden. He wishes he knew no fear. He wishes he knew innocence, like Brownshirt. 

“You don’t even know where you’re taking us, do you?” he says.

Brownshirt blinks again, the muscles in his jaw leaping. “No,” he says. “I don’t.”

“I do. I know where you’re taking me,” he says. “And I don’t like where you’re taking me.” His voice doesn’t catch. “I don’t like where you’re taking me, at all.” It does not catch. 

The setting sun illuminates Brownshirt’s face, his hair lost in the fire. He remains in shadow, refusing to shield his eyes as he stares at Brownshirt and reviles. A bitterness beats against his ribs. Nothing can eat it. It consumes everything and makes him a horrible monster. 

“You know what we are?” he says. 

Brownshirt says nothing. 

“We’re just a couple of assholes,” he says. “That’s all we are. That’s it. That’s the whole point.”

He’s ugly in the pretty way, all limb and no substance, his jaw quivering under the weight of his skull. He is no child of the sun. His mother used to smack him with a broom, the brittle scrapes against his arms, as she’d shoo him out of the kitchen, Evey watching him skulk away with wide child eyes, cookie dough on her chin. He was never smart enough to gain any sense, never stupid enough to gain any sympathy. He wishes she’d looked at him. He wishes she’d said goodbye, instead of just fiddling. 

Stupid.

Why, why, why? Who _cares?_ he wants to say. _Who’s asking?_  

“You’re fucked, big boy,” he says. 

Brownshirt cocks his head, his brows knitting together, like a stupid child.

“I mean,” he says, giving a hollow laugh, “I am too. I am too. But anyways.”

“Anyways.”

“Shut up.”

Brownshirt bites his bottom lip, staring at the road. 

He blinks against the sun. “Tell Evey I’m sorry,” he says. 

Brownshirt nods. 

Whosaskin? she’d hiss through her full-enough lips, eyes canting to the side. Whosaskin? She’d grab a cigarette, cupping her hand around the flame of the lighter as though to shield it from the ugly world. Only God can judge me, she’d warble, her neck bobbing, only God, you hear, only God, only God. 

“We’re just a couple of assholes,” he repeats. “That’s it.”

Brownshirt shrugs. 

“Yeah, that’s it,” he says, leaning onto his knees and staring at Brownshirt. “There weren’t no girl, you dumb fool. No girl that matters, anyways. The kind of gross, desperate shit a man like me does ain’t ever for a girl. It’s only ever for survival.”

Brownshirt says nothing. 

“Are you hungry?”

Brownshirt shrugs. 

He flicks the bug off the dashboard and settles his elbows onto it, skin drawn thin over his bones, nerves aching against the plastic. The sun is in his eyes. It hurts. “I think there’s a diner in about ten miles.”

Brownshirt swallows, his neck bobbing. 

“I’m scared,” he says. 

Brownshirt has whale-eyes, tight and concerned. So embarrassed, feigning disinterest, looking away, can’t stand the thought of him, of it, screaming. 

“My shoe’s untied,” he says. 

Brownshirt says nothing. 

“I don’t like where you’re taking me,” he says, “but that’s okay, because I don’t think you’ll like it either, once you get there.”

“Where am I going?” Brownshirt says. 

“Where do you think?” he says.

Brownshirt worries his bottom lip between his teeth. 

“Why’d I do it?” he says. 

Brownshirt shrugs. 

“It’s a stupid question,” he says. He leans back, settling his feet on the dashboard.

He’d wanted her to be the same when she knew. But nothing was the same. Nothing was ever the same. He wished that she’d have puffed up her lips and bat her eyes and cry Audrey Hepburn tears and whimper with her smoky Lauren Bacall voice. She only turned her face away. She only turned her face away from him. And nothing more. 

He supposes he does regret everything. Everything God ever did, he regrets. His memories are a glimmering reality that life only imitates. And now he’s done fucked up hard. He blew it. He figures there wasn’t much to blow, but maybe there was. And if so, then what. Then what. 

Brownshirt tucks his lips in and his teeth are slivers in the corner of his eye, white and shivering at the precipice of his vision, squirming around like maggots. “My whole prediction for the final game is shot,” he says.

“Mine too,” Brownshirt says, his voice hollow like someone scooped the flesh out with a spoon. 

“I never fucked her,” he says. “She wouldn’t look at me, after she knew what I did. Nobody would.”

“Oh,” Brownshirt says. 

He sits up, planting his feet into the floor. “I did what I had to do. Believe me, I regret it. But I did what I had to do.”

“I think I’m gonna throw up,” Brownshirt says, his face perspiring. 

“My shoe’s untied.”

“Then tie it.”

“I’m hungry,” he says.

“Shit, why would you do something like that?” Brownshirt says, wiping at himself. 

He looks at Brownshirt, sitting there in his own fluids, wiping his blue eyes, his tight lips quivering, his jaw arched and his hair invisible in the setting sun. He has to squint his eyes to look at him proper. “Do you think,” he says, “that they’ll let me go? Be honest, now.”

“Depends,” Brownshirt blubbers, his handsome face blinking against the road, cringing into his seat. 

“You’re so stupid,” he says, unable to help himself. 

Brownshirt hoods his eyes and he stares out at the road, unmoved.

He feels terrible and he doesn’t know why. The world’s conspired against him for years and he’s bitter enough to spit acid in its eyes. He doesn’t apologize. “They won’t,” he says. “And believe me when I say, you’d kill yourself if you were me. Believe me.”

“Sure,” Brownshirt says.

And they sit there. And he sees the bug, squirming against the side of his shoe. And the trees are all gone now, the top of the mountain reached. And he supposes he’s hungry. “Why’d I do it,” he says. “Why.”

Brownshirt says nothing. 

“What could have stopped me,” he says, leaning back, further back, dead eyes on the road. 

Brownshirt says nothing.

“I feel like I’m Elijah,” he says, “beating back the infidels. But maybe I’m just Lutze.”

“Maybe,” Brownshirt says. 

“Maybe,” he says, and the window is cold against his cheek. “Maybe.” He closes his eyes and he sees the red of his flesh, covering the world, shielding it from him. “I don’t think I’m cut out for Heaven.”

“Let’s just stop caring, okay?” Brownshirt says.

“Okay,” he says, slumping agains the car door. “Okay. Okay.”

He decides he isn’t going to think about stupid things, anymore.

“Okay.”

So he doesn’t. 

 

 


End file.
